from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.
In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.
These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."
The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.
Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.
On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.
No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @01:55PM
Those who can't do teach. Those who can't teach administrate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @02:00PM
It has always cracked me up when teachers tell us how hard they work, and what they "deserve". They work nine months out of the year (give or take a little - generally 180 working days, and a handful of "inservice" days) in an air conditioned building, with all the possible services available (cafeteria, coffee, pizza delivery, whatever). It's not like they ever break a sweat.
If they want to make more money, maybe they should have studied harder, instead of partying their way through college?
Then again - it does make some sense that higher wages might attract better qualified teachers.
Wait - who am I kidding? The Ruling Class isn't going to offer any meaningful increase in wages. Significant money has to be accumulated in the Ruling Class' hands.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @02:09PM
What bothers me is that it is a very attractive vocation with lots of job protection and fantastic pay and working conditions, but they keep striking (here in Ontario). They want higher pay, etc, but there is a huge supply of unemployed teachers. I'd like to see some market factors come into play here. Lower the pay and hire more teachers, giving more attention to each student, smaller classes, etc. Added bonus is higher employment as well.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:53PM
Lower the pay
Your idea sounds awesome! Drive them all into poverty, that will teach them! (pun intended)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:55PM
Nope, he wants to give money to the unemployed teachers. Without expanding education funding this naturally means decreasing wages for the employed teachers so that new positions can be opened.
You're a horrible person for not caring about these people and wanting to just let the currently hired ones monopolize it all. Horrible!! Poverty lover!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 01 2016, @03:45PM
All this teacher-hate is a relatively recent thing, coinciding with parents no longer accepting accountability for their shit kids' rotten behavior as well as spineless administrators who started insisting that teachers allow students to do whatever the fuck they want and not be punished for it. Teaching as we know it is what we called "babysitting" 20 years ago.
On the other hand, all the time I was in school, I never saw these so-called "horror-teachers" the anti-unionists are discussing. I went to school in many different schools in 2 different states and in poor counties -- and not only were the teachers passionate about what they did, but the ones who did fuck up had fires lit under their asses by administration.
Even as recently as 20-30 years ago teaching was a noble and rewarding profession, but now you have crap like no child left behind and teaching to standardized tests. Back in the days when I was in school, the dumb kids and the fuckups were marginalized. Now, thanks to political correctness (and conveniently the Republican love of cheap labor and the Democrat love of votes from useful idiot leeches), the fuckup kids get to drag down the education of the whole class. Now many of them have to teach Common-core, which is obviously designed to break students' wills and indoctrinate them into obedience of the state.
And for all the bitching about teachers' unions, where is all the bitching about government employees' unions, or prison guards' unions? Why the fuck do they need unions anyway, not that they have a goddamn thing to worry about. I've seen waaaaaay more incompetent government unionists than teachers' unionists. Where is all the crying about them?!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:26PM
I don't "hate" teachers, although where I am, I think they're overpaid based on the number of people that are wiling to teach. I also think standardized testing is a great idea at a bare *minimum* to make sure that education is actually working, and how well. I agree with about the lack of responsibility for children, although I blame that on parents, not on teachers, and yes, it's dragging down everyone else. Teachers here generally have several "assistants" to help manage the kid that should not be in that class. That's a separate problem of course. The curriculum in general has been screwed up in many ways as well. What they've done to mathematics and arithmetic in elementary school is absolutely ridiculous and is quite detrimental.
Personally, I think teachers should also work year-round, with the summer being used for improving course curriculum and materials. I keep hearing "Oh, I spend 2 hours a night preparing course material". We've been teaching these same courses for a very long time. The material and planning should be laid out down to the day (with some slack of course, and options), but for every teacher to be doing it manually each year is silly. If teachers want to do something different, that's fine, but there is a certain level that must be attained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @11:25AM
Teaching isn't like writing a song, and then singing that same song for the next 50 years until you retire.
"They" have done something to mathematics. Oops, there goes all your hard work planning your course just right. Now you have to make a new one that fits 'common core' or whatever this years flavour is called. You have to "manage kids", of course they are all the same, and what works with one is interchangeable with another. You want teachers to get better and better, but spend no time on improving their plans and course material. It's not like "facts" ever change is it. Until "they" all decide slavery isn't important anymore and everyone should learn programming now instead. Lucky no one ever discovers anything new, or invents anything. Nothing ever changes to a new version and things don't go in and out of fashion.
Ahh the republican dream time, it's the 1950's and nothing will ever change.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:38PM
Also, I agree about the public employee unions, and I'm even currently in one (not by choice). Pay for public jobs should be fixed, with the pay tied to the cost of living. I' have heard lots of complaining about government unions though, and much of it is deserved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @08:36AM
My first grade teacher was married to the local union boss. She got away with everything. Mostly, she went to Hawaii and left us with substitutes.
My high school physics teacher was head of the department. He taught about 30 days of honors physics. The rest of the time was spent running a blood drive, going outside to smoke, and maybe doing some yearbook stuff.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:22PM
At my school I had a lot of very highly qualified teachers.
My physics teacher was also a project manager at Raytheon. English is his second language and he almost has no accent.
One of my chemistry teachers was a rocket scientist for NASA before retiring to become a teacher. He worked on the first man on the moon project. Even at his old age he was very intelligent.
Another one of my chemistry teachers did research for a number of years before becoming a teacher.
One of my calculus teachers worked in industry as a mathematician and software developer for a number of years as well before becoming a teacher. He was very skilled and taught many computer programming languages from C/C++, to assembly among many others. Proficient in all of them. Even for his old age he was very skilled.
OK, my microbiology teacher was a medical doctor for many years before she retired to become a teacher. She knew everything there was to know about medicine, was generally very intelligent, but being new as a teacher at the time her microbiology was lacking and I almost wish I had a microbiologist teacher. I don't know why my school would hire a medical doctor to become a microbiology teacher but, then again, it was an intro to microbiology class but still. She also taught anatomy and physiology.
My aunt is qualified to teach calculus, Arabic, and computer science. She worked for a large company as a database programmer for a number of years before she left the company to raise her children after having children. Now that her children are old enough to stay home by themselves she is now a teacher. She graduated (undergrad) a good college with good scores (~3.8 GPA) in computer science while working and never retook a class. Her English is stronger than that of most educated natives.
Maybe I'm just bias because of the schools I went to but I've had a lot of very brilliant teachers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:33PM
(Well, my physics teacher does both if that wasn't clear. He is a project manager/engineer at Raytheon and he teaches physics, at two colleges. Plus he and his wife raises their children in addition to his wife being an engineer)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Friday July 01 2016, @02:59PM
At my school I had a lot of very highly qualified teachers.
At mine, I can only think of one: the teacher for the computer-related classes was a mathematician that worked for the government in some capacity, with a heavy computer background. He was retired and teaching because of a passion for computers and desire to teach others about them. His class was under-funded and still using 286's (while the school eventually got a brand new 'computer lab' of Pentium Pentium IIs only used by special ed), and the principal seemed to have a vendetta against him, but he kept teaching anyway.
I probably learned more from him than any math teacher I had, just as a side effect of how he taught his class.
He quit a year or two after I took his classes because the school decided computers were a waste of time and forced him to teach algebra instead. I remember him talking about how the pay wasn't worth it for anyone qualified to properly teach the subjects, and he lived primarily off saved funds or something. Once they took away the class, he had no reason to stay. Such a waste of a good teacher.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday July 01 2016, @03:03PM
(while the school eventually got a brand new 'computer lab' of Pentium Pentium IIs only used by special ed)
That should have been "Pentiums or Pentium IIs"; I don't recall the release date of the P2 so it could have been either. The systems were blazing fast at the time and wasted on dumb typing games and shit while they decommissioned the actual computer classes. :/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Friday July 01 2016, @02:31PM
Have you actually been in a school classroom recently? Yes, they may have air conditioning, but it's also likely that the A/C is broken and hasn't been repaired for months.
Yes, teachers work only 9 months of the year, but the good teachers work long hours during those 9 months, including weekends.
And that's the fundamental problem: what does society do to make teaching a profession that will attract good teachers? It is badly paid, and the working conditions don't compare well to most office jobs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @03:42PM
Bad pay? Lemme consider that. The average couple both have to work in the US. That is almost a given. Two teacher's paychecks, one household, at least in this area, makes for some pretty damned good money - COMPARED TO THE LOCAL DEMOGRAPHICS!
New York City? Yeah, cost of living is high there - but teachers are paid about five times as much as teachers here. Los Angeles? I figure the same thing.
The same thing was true when I was in high school. The football coach was married to the girl's health/home-ec teacher. Together, they made enough money that they paid off a very nice home while still in their mid-30's. I remember the little mortgage burning party they held.
Sorry, I find it difficult to sympathize with teachers "poor pay".
A teacher who has to support a family as the sole bread winner may have a pretty tough go of it - but it still doesn't look as tough as many parents. How 'bout all those waitresses out there, trying to live on tips?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 01 2016, @04:30PM
While you're busy ragging on teacher's supposedly great pay, and comparing that to waitresses' pay (waitresses, seriously?) you totally overlook admin. Like upper management at large corporations, school administrators are seriously overpaid. You mentioned the football coach, but you don't seem to understand that's the one job that often pays as well or better than administration. It's disgusting that at some schools, the football coach is the employee who is paid the highest. Shows that the parents care more about sports than education. Administrators at public schools aren't overpaid a lot, it's the ones at these private charter schools and colleges that really rake in the money. You wonder why there's been a big push for charter schools? A great deal of the motivation behind it is the chance for the organizers to make a killing off the public. Charter schools have less accountability, and abuse that to transfer wealth from the public to the operators and their cronies.
Until golden parachutes and extreme executive compensation are ended, I have zero sympathy for complaints that anyone at the bottom of the rung, including teachers, is overpaid. You may think that executive pay does not amount to much because executives are relatively few. You would be wrong. Their pay is so outrageous, the whole group of upper management could be cut upwards of 80% and they'd each still make more than anyone else in the company. The money from that pay cut is enough to hire hundreds of people, and not at minimum wage, but at market rates for engineers. At one company I once worked at, the CEO's golden parachute was 52 million, 16% of the company's net worth!
CEO = Thief Executive Officer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @04:47PM
I have no argument with your rant on executives and adminstrators. They are very often grossly overpaid. But, I was compareing teachers to other working class people, not to executives and golden parachutes.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:59PM
I was a teacher, the job is hard and stressful, requires way more time outside of the classroom, and the pay only becomes reasonable after 10-20 years. Before that it is a low paying job with a ton of requirements to jump through. Don't talk about things you obviously don't know anything about besides the bullshit you and your friends sling around the grill.
Also, just because other people are screwed over with their payrate doesn't make it ok. I switched careers because I wasn't paid enough for the stress.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @12:12AM
New York isn't typical for teachers' pay in the USA. Most teachers are paid much less than they are in New York.
And, as others have pointed out, comparing their pay to that of a waitress? Really? I can tell you that where I live, teacher pay is not sufficient for a single teacher near the beginning of his/her career to rent their own apartment. That's after a degree plus about half the amount of study required for a Master's degree. In what other profession is that true?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @01:38AM
Why? Teachers should not be considered "working class". If class is defined by job, it's very clearly a middle class job. You know that there are lots of people who are middle class but are not "executives and golden parachutes", don't you?
Your problem is that you think teachers are overpaid and you won't accept any evidence to the contrary.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 02 2016, @02:01AM
Uhhhhhmmmmm - I thought "middle class" WAS the working class. Upper class does no work - or very little, anyway. The welfare class does no work. The impoverished who aren't on welfare work their asses off, and the middle class most often work just as hard. The difference between the impoverished and the middle class is shrinking every year - it's kinda like government has declared war on the middle class.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @06:07AM
Yes and no. In the US, "Middle class" is generally defined by income level (while elsewhere it is generally defined by the type of job or source of income).
The unfortunate fact is that teachers should be middle class, but in many states, young teachers don't earn enough to be included in the middle class. They don't earn enough to have an income that is much greater than the waitress you are worried about. This despite having a bachelor's degree plus about half way to a master's. This despite taking on a lot of debt in the form of student loans.
Yet, people think that teachers should be better, despite the fact that they are not paid sufficiently well.
Now there are many examples of bad teachers who are overpaid. But school districts can't hire better teachers simply because few people who would be good teachers are prepared to dedicate their lives to a profession that suffers from chronically low pay.
Many teachers last no more than 5 years in the profession: not enough time to get to a tolerable salary level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:44PM
Government schools have less accountability, and abuse that to transfer wealth from the public to the operators and their cronies.
FTFY.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:32PM
The ruling class prefer to pay additional private tutors for their children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:51PM
I have no problems with that. If their children are willing to go through the effort to learn stuff and earn their status through their intelligent capabilities that's good. Then they can use that knowledge to push the technological envelope, find cures to diseases, and advance our tech to make everyone better off. That's earning a living and is far different than lazy people that rule due to how they manipulate politics and how politicians acquire their wealth due to getting kickbacks.
I know a lot of people that make millions of dollars because they own legitimate businesses but they worked their butts off, are very intelligent, and some are proficient in several languages even. They earned it and if their children aren't slack offs and wish to study to earn their living too I see no problem with that. If their children end up being lazy and all they want to do is party and drink and do drugs and don't want to put the effort to learn then they deserve to lose those fortunes. Education is a good thing and it's something we should invest in including private tutoring. and now with youtube and whatnot more people have the opportunity to acquire knowledge probably thanks to those smart people (the ruling class with their private tutors) you hate so much that made all this technology possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:56PM
If it's so easy, then go teach some fucking inner city school children, Great Master
(Score: 5, Informative) by Francis on Friday July 01 2016, @03:01PM
That's because you're generally ignorant of such things. People make these sorts of ridiculous claims because they haven't ever taught and haven't spent any time with teachers, they work far more hours than you'd assume based upon the 180 days of 6 hour work days. If a teacher is anywhere near that, they're probably on the verge of being run out of the profession for laziness. All those tests and homework assignments don't write and grade themselves.
It's not 180 days a year, that's 180 days of classes, which is not the same thing as 180 days of work. Perhaps a teacher who has all their materials done from previous years might be able to work something roughly equivalent to 200 days a year, but the suggestion that teachers only work when the schools are in session is ludicrous.
As far as the money goes, that's a complete load of crap. Whether you work hard or not, the pay for that major and in teaching is below what you'd see in specialties that have equivalent degree requirements. On top of the low pay, the teachers are also responsible for maintaining their certifications out of their own pocket. Mostly that involves giving up summers in order to pay for classes.
BTW, those inservice days don't count towards the 180 the students have to get 180 days of class time, so the inservice days shouldn't be counted in the figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:18PM
They're lucky they have jobs. The districts haven't been hiring much; every time the unions get their higher pay, they do it at the cost of hiring. So new teachers aren't getting into the systems, at least in my region. Senior teachers keep their jobs without consideration for actual effectiveness. They use state tests to judge effectiveness, actually, but those have shown to be useless; all the teachers have to do is basically get their students to show up, which is easy to do via bribes.
Plus, locally, teachers are recruiting students to aid them in their battles against the school administrators...
They've been using every trick in the book to keep the teachers beat down, which makes them unionize, which makes the administration use every trick in the book to beat them down, which ...
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday July 01 2016, @03:33PM
It's been ten months for decades, and longer if you including the 45+ hours a week they work on average. The lower grades may get away with less, but also get paid less.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday July 01 2016, @08:22PM
It is telling that Ethanol Fueled made better points than you and nerdfest.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Informative) by art guerrilla on Saturday July 02 2016, @04:42AM
what always cracks me up, are the superficial 'analysis' of teaching/teachers by people who haven't set foot in an average school in the last 20-30-40 years...
beyond that, i am certain if i gave a recitation of the working conditions of contract programmers, that might seem pretty cush compared to a teacher's -or anyone's- lot...
but -being a second-hand 'expert' based on the fact my better half is a teacher in a poor section of town- let us re-visit your insightful remarks to discover just where it is you went wrong
"It has always cracked me up when teachers tell us how hard they work, ..."
A. you have a funny (not funny-ha-ha) sense of humor,
B. hear a lot of teachers talk, they don't tell me about how hard they work,
C. what i SEE, is my wife -a more dedicated and teacher-of-the-year type you could not find, AND -paradoxically- SHE IS TYPICAL- works for an hour or so in the morning on lesson plans, grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, BEFORE going to school at 6:30 and then doing grading, etc there before kids arrive; then being a combination parent/confidante/cheerleader/disciplinarian/test proctor/administrative proxy and occasional teacher to 5-6-7 groups of screaming yard apes whose hormones are raging, amped up on sugar water, and sporting a not inconsiderable percentage having strong (if not arguably deserved) case of i-don't-give-a-fuck, and doing that for the next 7-8 hours bombarded by the emotional soap operas, schoolyard politics and dysfunctional family spillover, and then stay after school for another hour or two doing -you guessed it- grading (who the fuck do you think grades ALL the preparatory tests for all The Tests 'everyone' insists is the key to education ?), and VOLUNTARY tutoring for the few motivated kids, AND THEN do another 1-2-3 hours of grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, etc AFTER she gets home...
yeah, i bet you can do it with one hand tied behind your back...
EVERY.
damn.
day.
NEVER takes a sick day off, even when sick...
(and she gets sick hanging around hundreds of germ-buckets every day)
NEVER takes a personal day off for mental health, etc...
AND -because 'her kids' on the various sporting/etc teams ask her- she goes to just about all the home games of all the sports/plays/dances/etc 'her kids' are participating in...
of course -just like you would- she gets paid overtime for that in her cush, unionized bon-bon eating job, right ? ? ?
yeah, in your dreams...
and you would do the same, volunteering your unpaid time, right ? ? ?
(don't lie to us)
"They work nine months out of the year (give or take a little - generally 180 working days, and a handful of "inservice" days)..."
actually, closer to 9 1/2 months, BUT the point is their schedule is a more civilized schedule ALL of us should enjoy, but don't...
the 'crime' is not that the uber-cushy teacher jobs get a sane work schedule (over the course of a year, as far as within the time they work, see above), the crime is that korporations/etc get away with providing shit benefits in general, and time off in particular...
(AND, the kicker is, i am convinced it is entirely to their DETRIMENT; i think a better rested, more relaxed and focused employee is a much better employee over the one flogged for the sake of flogging...)
and they ALSO have various continuous education classes, re-certification classes for updated skills assessment, etc that they take over the summer... my wife used to volunteer for some of the other committees and such where she would go to other seminars, but had to give that up because it was eating up her whole summer...
not to mention, a number of teachers also teach during summer school sessions of various duration...
(having said that, yes, i DO give her a hard time because she DOES enjoy a sane, civilized vacation period... however, the downside in this case is it is a certain time of year all the time; she really can't choose WHEN to have a 'vacation', it is during summer, period...)
"... in an air conditioned building, with all the possible services available (cafeteria, coffee, pizza delivery, whatever). It's not like they ever break a sweat."
you presume ALL teachers work in some ultra-modern, recent-vintage, totally functional, totally equipped, leisure-time, green-leafed campus where everyone lolls around and contemplates life and shit, eating sushi and doing jello shots from hooters delivery grrls, or something ? ? ?
WTF schools do YOU go to ? ? ?
mine works in a typical school which is about 50-60-70 years old, has a 7-8' chainlink/barbwire-topped fence around it (A SCHOOL), has asbestos abatement issues ALL OVER the place (which will NOT be removed, but 'remediated' by being covered up, etc, because it 'costs too much'), the AC -in FLORIDA- works sometimes (with INOPERABLE windows), has ceiling tiles falling down, mold issues, no supplies (oh, UNLESS you are in the separate-but-unequal 'academy', where they get all the shit they want/need), and crappy computers you spend half your time fighting and cobbling together workable solutions to get kids rotated around to working computers, etc, etc, etc...
THAT is the far more prevalent reality of schools, not some made-up, plush, silicon-valley-like-employee-pandering nesting place...
"If they want to make more money, maybe they should have studied harder, instead of partying their way through college?"
you know, this kind of 'thinking' pisses me off, and not just in relation to teachers, but in relation to just about ANY and ALL professions...
so, we are simply re-programmable meatbags to be discarded at the whim of a dysfunctional economic system whenever we can't keep up with whatever arbitrary requirements a korporate borg decides upon *this* day ? ? ?
OR, is that tail-wagging-the-dog 'thinking' which puts the primacy of KORPORATIONS above the wants/needs of PEOPLE ? ? ?
(which seems dissonant with the further writing which appears to proffer proper disrespect for the fictitious legal entities...)
"Then again - it does make some sense that higher wages might attract better qualified teachers."
this would seem an obvious truism for most regular jobs as well as teaching...
"Wait - who am I kidding? The Ruling Class isn't going to offer any meaningful increase in wages. Significant money has to be accumulated in the Ruling Class' hands."
see, this is where i am confused: KORPORATIONS are the major tool of the ruling klass, yet you appear to be giving them deference they do not deserve, as if they are some innocent, neutral party, sadly and horribly mis-used by ruling klass slime... like the gummint, korporations have become distorted, perverted, distant shadows of the useful tools TO SERVE PEOPLE/SOCIETY that they once (mostly) were, but have devolved to economic bludgeons of the ruling klass...
as is also the case with the public school systems:
the reasons public schools have been PURPOSEFULLY fucked over, raped and pillaged, are the ruling klass BOTH oppressing the education of the hoi polloi (the smarter you get, the less you want to fight and die for Empire, *ahem*), AND looting them with bullshit test requirements, whose only beneficiary are the test companies and charter schools owned by the ruling klass, duh...
in short, you could not be more wrong about teachers in general (of course i will not defend the percentage of lame teachers there are, just as surely you don't defend the X% of lame programmers/etc there are); BUT they ARE handcuffed and whipped by a cruel and insane education system designed to not educate, but program for obedience...
they are at the spearpoint of the kafkaesque gummint/society we have had sneak up on us with little cat feet...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @08:29AM
You need about 1 teacher per 30 students, but this fails to account for special education and prep time and administration, etc.
Let's call it 1 to 10, so each student must supply 10% of a teacher's pay. Remember that teachers have expensive benefits like healthcare and pensions.
So then, considering taxes, let's assume that every family makes as much as a teacher (they sure don't) and has only 1 kid. Also, ignore the need to heat the building and repair things.
That's 10%. Every family pays 10% of their pre-tax-benefits-included income, so about 20% when you account for benefits.
Just a second here... we ignored many expenses, and teachers actually are getting paid more than many families get. Adjusting for that, the people in a poor area could be facing taxes equivalent to over 50% of their income. WTF.
In other words, the finances don't work out. Sorry. The money is not there. The fundamental problem is that we aren't just hiring a few teachers. We're hiring millions of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:44PM
I'm sorry that people thought this was flamboyant. I meant to post it as a commonly repeated adage, not as a serious statement, only because of its relevance. I actually have a lot of respect for teachers and many of them teach because they enjoy teaching and I actually kinda disagree with some of the anti-teacher sentiment around here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:39PM
Those who can't administrate, run for elected office. Those who can't get elected, post to news aggregation sites under the username "Runaway****".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @07:04PM
"Those who can't get elected, post to news aggregation sites under the username "Runaway****". "
You got me. I will retreat back to my room now ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:00PM
Seems like they had average IQs back in the day, and even in the early 00's they weren't exactly stellar.
But they made a big move.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VanderDecken on Friday July 01 2016, @02:26PM
Don't forget that the population that has continued with a university education is already self-selected. Even those that graduate at the bottom of their class have still done better than the average population overall (keeping in mind the numbers that don't go to university at all). At a certain point, the measurement of IQ becomes a "meh...".
I would contend that after a certain threshold has been achieved, it is far more important to have someone who has the gift of teaching, the aptitude and patience to do so for the their target age group, Someone who knows that they don't know everything in all fields, but can inspire their students to go further than they can.
In secondary school, I had more than one teacher who I'm reasonably confident had a lower IQ than I but that loved teaching, knew their limits of their current knowledge, guided me the best they could, and encouraged me to do things that were beyond their current experience. It made a world of difference.
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @02:52PM
For elementary school maybe. A teacher with a 120 IQ has to put a lot more effort into knowing what they're talking about than a teacher with a 160 IQ. And they largely do not. They also utterly fail to see more efficient/effective ways of tackling problems than their more intelligent counterparts.
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well. Once I hit middle school they were largely just taking up space and keeping the room quiet so I could nap. The textbooks and my own insights did almost all of the teaching. In short, they were overpaid babysitters to me. Hell, even my CS courses I only bothered listening for the first week or two because that's when the basics you need to understand to grok the more complex bits of the course are introduced.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:19PM
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well. Once I hit middle school they were largely just taking up space and keeping the room quiet so I could nap.
Its laughable that you think you can literally measure the IQs of people just by seeing them in one specific context. You talk like you never matured past middle school.
When everybody else is the problem...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @03:24PM
If you can't tell if someone's bloody stupid over the span of nine months, I can already tell where you fall in the distribution curve.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 01 2016, @08:47PM
... I can already tell where you fall in the distribution curve.
Speaking of inability to detect stupidity...
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @09:21PM
Nah, I detected yours long ago. Somewhat above average intelligence with delusions of grandeur and a pathological inability to see the world as it actually is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 01 2016, @09:28PM
....delusions of grandeur...
Conceded.
...and a pathological inability to see the world as it actually is.
That's rich coming from a guy who's view of the world could losslessly fit within a 1-bit .BMP file.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by VanderDecken on Friday July 01 2016, @03:35PM
All my teachers throughout my entire school career either had a much lower IQ (thirty points less at least) than I did or they hid it damned well.
In using the phrase "I am reasonably confident that ...", the point was not the IQ spread but the fact that the most important thing in play was not their IQ.
A good piece of advice: "Start with the assumption that you are the dumbest person in the room." While it may be far from wrong, that perspective makes it less likely that you will be convinced of your infallibility and more likely to listen to the ideas of others. And even when you come to the conclusion that the other guy is on par with a sack of hammers, still treat him with respect and don't let that opinion come through. A good leader is pushed up from below. He doesn't trample and climb over others.
And to avoid the irony, maybe it's time to change my .sig ...
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 01 2016, @04:02PM
IQ in my opinion doesn't mean dick if you're teaching a bunch of people who (mostly) know less than you do. Can you teach the material in a way which makes them want to learn it? Can you show empathy? Can you answer their questions about the material?
This is a true story. I posted above that my experience with teachers was mostly good. However, there were a couple exceptions - Jews. One Jewish English teacher made the class read Ellie Weasel's Muh Holocaust, by far one of the most boring books I've ever read. She was also mean and frequently sent students to the office for nothing. The other was a Jew, and to give this guy credit, he taught the Holocaust so passionately that he made it interesting. I still have vivid and verbatim memories of his lectures to this day. But he too was an asshole, and although he was smart, he was such a fucking dick that everything besides the holocaust was a terrible slog and I didn't remember a goddamn bit of it. Students have a harder time learning shit when they're associating it with bad memories.
Long story short - if smart teachers are raging assholes, then they're not good teachers.
That was before I was aware of the Jews, so I didn't know they were Jews. But I did know that they were assholes. Come years later, upon learning new facts, my confirmation bias gained an extra couple points.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:57PM
Well I had one intelligent university linguistics teacher that was Jewish. She was a very good, down to earth, teacher and was very compassionate and intelligent. Though who knows why she decided to study Japanese as her area of focus (not relevant to our class though, our class was a more general linguistics class). I felt that I learned a lot from that class.
(Score: 2, Funny) by BigotDetectorGoesBing! on Friday July 01 2016, @07:10PM
> That was before I was aware of the Jews, so I didn't know they were Jews. But I did know that they were assholes.
Bing!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @06:17PM
It's not a matter of "do they have something I can learn" so much as "can I have a nap and then learn an hour's worth of their teaching in five minutes of reading". Most everyone you ever meet will know more about something than you do but if they can't impart it quicker than you can learn it on your own, they're useless as a teacher.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:33PM
"can I have a nap and then learn an hour's worth of their teaching in five minutes of reading".
That has got to be the most narcissistic way to evaluate a teacher.
Just because you are a special snowflake doesn't mean the teacher should neglect the entire class to cater to you.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:25PM
Oh bull shit. You do not teach to the lowest common denominator or even the median. You teach to the top and let the rest either work harder or let their grades reflect their inferior mastery of the subject. Fuck participation trophy teaching.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:38PM
Easy for someone (who thinks) they are at the top to say.
Why aren't you a teacher?
They are so over-paid and the competition is so obviously shit.
You'd be a rockstar!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:49PM
I lack the patience with stupidity to teach. It's a limitation I practice overcoming daily. Thank you for assisting me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Friday July 01 2016, @08:54PM
Teaching to the lowest common denominator screws everybody else. Classes do need to be divided by skill level. Elementary school is a prime example. Teaching kids to read all at the same pace is near impossible. My oldest is a first grader reading at a fourth grade level. Some of the kids in his class aren't reading at a first grade level. By dividing them by ability, you can help the kids that are having a harder time and push the kids who are really doing well.
If they didn't do it that way (and I am thankful that they do), I'd be doing a lot more of it at home, and my kid might become a discipline problem in school due to boredom.
I am grateful to my parents, teachers and administrators who realized that I could do the work with my eyes closed, and got me into a program that was designed to push the kids at the top of the class, even as early as second grade.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @09:26PM
Damn but that would have been nice. I learned almost nothing outside social studies classes besides how to use commas and curse words properly during my first five years of school. My parents had already taught me that far at home by the time I started kindergarten.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @03:12PM
True that. Non-college FB buddy of mine posted some meme about how "Just because you went to college doesn't mean you're smarter than me." a while back. That's true...but people who are smarter than you are more likely to go to college, so yeah, people who went to college are on average smarter than people who don't. It's not that college makes you smarter. It's selection bias.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 01 2016, @04:17PM
While I believe that was true in the past, it may not be any more. Is it an intelligent choice to rack up a huge student loan debt for a piece of paper from a degree mill? I spent two years at a trade school and am comfortably supporting my family as the sole breadwinner.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @04:48PM
That's a fair point, but I suspect the numbers of people like you who have made the informed choice to do something other than college even though they'd be suited for college are relatively small. We still live in an era when the default expectation for a lot of people is that they should and will go to college. Some people choose to go to college because they don't want to get a job yet.
I'd also disagree with characterizing all colleges and universities as degree mills. I initially chose not to go to college, but finally did because I found not having the degree was a barrier to getting better jobs. "Fine. I'll get the stupid piece of paper.", I thought. Turned out I actually learned a lot.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 01 2016, @07:55PM
It's not that college makes you smarter. It's selection bias.
Where'd you learn 'bout this 'lection buy-ass'? In yer fancy college, college-boy?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 01 2016, @04:35PM
And it's also useful to remember that when we say "university education", in the case of most teachers in the US that's a master's level education (and in a few rare cases you'll find doctorates), which means it's rare to have a teacher that's a complete fool.
I'm not saying there aren't foolish teachers out there, but usually the universities and education schools weed them out. And when they don't, they often get caught in their first couple of years when many union contracts allow bosses to fire teachers for incompetence.
How do I know this? I as a student was involved in having one of my teachers in her first year fired for incompetence, specifically for trying to teach chemistry without having sufficient grasp of mathematics to pass high school algebra. Which, as you might have guessed, is extremely difficult if not impossible. Especially after I demonstrated quite conclusively that what she was doing in one derivation implied that 2=1. How she got her certification I will never know, but that was the end of her time in the teaching profession.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:29PM
Ever met someone who is a member of MENSA? Did they seem like they would make a great teacher? Chances are they were the kind of person that a classroom of fifth graders would chew up and spit out.
IQ is a single number that correlates well with some abilities and is practically meaningless for predicting some other abilities. Seems like we shouldn't be talking about a generic benchmark when evaluating suitability for a specific profession. Instead we should be looking at metrics that try to measure abilities most relevant to the job.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @02:56PM
You have a better benchmark of someone's ability to learn and extrapolate further from what they've learned? If you can't grok it and extrapolate further on your own (what IQ measures), you've no business "teaching" it to others.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:13PM
Lol
We must measure something!
IQ is something
So we must measure IQ!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @03:22PM
Sure, let's just let the kids be taught by 90 IQ simpletons. That should turn out well. Oh, wait, we already do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday July 01 2016, @07:19PM
To be fair, high IQ is pretty useless, and maybe even counterproductive in a situation where what we call "learning" is really just rote memorization. I remember getting admonished in high school when I asked "why?" until it was obvious the only answer available at the time was "because it's in the damn book."
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:31PM
Not really, it's only a hindrance after however long it took you to stick X in your head. Then homework instead of a learning tool becomes a test of how much pointless bullshit you can put up with. Come to think of it, that's probably good life experience. I'm pretty sure I didn't need that many years of practice though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday July 01 2016, @07:54PM
I don't disagree, but I think we're talking two different things here. You're talking about how it should be, not how it is. Any benefits provided by high IQ would suggest that there would be less time teaching to the standardized tests, which I understand to be the "only thing that matters".
High IQ teachers would be a good thing if class time was more organically constructed. That SHOULD be obvious. Thing is, if your entire curriculum is focused around basically teaching a standardized test, then there's really no point.
Sigh, I don't know, man. Maybe you don't see that around you? Might just be a "the midwest sucks" kind of thing.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @08:03PM
Nah, it's exactly like that here too. Reality vs. Should Be. I'm just not adjusting my ideas of what's good for students down to fit the insane and useless public school system we have.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday July 01 2016, @09:09PM
I dunno, I think there's probably more legitimate reasons why a 160 IQ teacher may not be the best even in an ideal classroom. Because not all students have a 160 IQ, and the teacher needs to be able to explain the concepts to all of them. If you're asking questions the teacher can't answer, you're smart enough to go look it up yourself (although in a perfect world, the teacher should help you with that). But if the teacher is explaining things in such a way that only a handful of kids get it, then they're leaving everyone else behind. In later highschool and university classes you can certainly make the case that such people *should* be left behind if they're not willing to work for it...but there's plenty of classes for which that is not an acceptable strategy. The teachers need to understand what they're teaching, but they also need to think about and understand it in a way that their students will be able to grasp too.
Basically...we don't want this:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3565 [smbc-comics.com]
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday July 01 2016, @03:59PM
The paper used a number of metrics for grading. Even with the metrics broken into verbal, spacial aptitude, and math the top fields were out-performing the lower fields across the board.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:02PM
None of those metrics are particularly applicable to social skills like empathy, ability to motivate, and to communicate at the level of the audience - the kinds of things that teaching requires. Just because you can write like Dickens, apply numerical methods and have an intuition for spatial theory doesn't mean you can convince a teenager that math is worth exploring or that mastering a musical instrument is rewarding.
(Score: 2) by BK on Friday July 01 2016, @09:35PM
Just because you can convince people of things doesn't mean you know what to convince them of - or what to do once they're convinced.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @03:09PM
Yes. A childhood friend of mine has been an active member of MENSA for years.
Actually, she teaches special education students. If any classroom of kids is going to chew you up and spit you out, it'd be them. She's been doing it for a long time and she's great at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:42PM
Actually, she teaches special education students. If any classroom of kids is going to chew you up and spit you out, it'd be them. She's been doing it for a long time and she's great at it.
Really? I don't think that's a good example. I think lots of people have more patience with dumb animals and really stupid people. Look at the amount of shit they put up with from their cats/dogs and how well they still treat their cats/dogs in return. And I'm not sure it's because cats and dogs don't get the right to vote... Then compare with how much patience many of the same people have with other people...
Also the really stupid people usually don't have enough intelligence to get under your skin or figure out what really pushes your buttons. Their parents are very unlikely to expecting you to get their precious princes and princesses into MIT. Neither you nor others expect as much from them so you're not as annoyed when they fail.
It's like how people treat 2-3 year olds finger painting something that's really not amazing, "Oh honey that's wonderful". If a non-retarded non "special ed" 15 year old kid was to do the same painting people wouldn't be saying "oh honey that's wonderful" (unless they're clever enough to pass themselves off as some modern art "artist" ;) ).
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday July 02 2016, @02:20AM
>I think lots of people have more patience with dumb animals and really stupid people.
That's an interesting observation because recently, I've found that the best way to deal with stupid people is to not treat them as if they were equals, but to treat them as really retarded puppies. I no longer get angry about some of the shit they come up with because I don't expect anything from them. The fact that they can form a coherent sentence exceeds my expectations.
What a world of difference a slight change of perspective can make!
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday July 01 2016, @03:09PM
Indeed, I could probably join Mensa if I really wanted to, and I think you're absolutely right. Some of us are able to effectively teach and to help in ways that people with less cognitive function could, but I think most folks with higher IQs are going to have issues relating to students that are struggling and waste a ton of energy being frustrated by "easy" things being hard for the students to understand.
There's also the issue that folks with higher IQs don't necessarily know anything about study skills. Most of the time, I got my A just by showing up to class and writing whatever the instructor wrote on the board and not much else. It worked because my memory and my ability to systematize the information was way above the typical student, but I think it would have been better if I had been challenged enough to have to actually work at it.
That being said, IQ is probably the best measure we have of cognitive abilities related to our model of education and pulling from the lower half is probably only slightly better than pulling everybody from the top quarter.
Ultimately, having a high IQ might be somewhat relevant early on or if you're presented with a student that needs a very quick on the fly explanation for something that you don't normally do. But, realistically, you're generally doing the same course over and over and over for decades and having a high IQ is definitely not needed to keep regurgitating the same basic ideas each time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @03:32PM
The thing is, teaching is simply a skill. One those with a high IQ could learn just as quickly as they learn everything else.
Interpersonal interaction would likely be the biggest problem. Many of us who ruined bell curve grading systems for everyone else do not play well with others. It's not that we necessarily look down on them so much as it is that it can be exceedingly tiring trying to explain something that you grasped quickly to someone who cannot seem to come to terms with it. Patience is not a skill that IQ helps with whatsoever.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdavidb on Friday July 01 2016, @05:11PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @06:19PM
Self-awareness and self-control factor in there greatly as well. Both can be learned but IQ doesn't help a whole lot with either.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday July 01 2016, @07:23PM
According to this psychologist, IQ can help a lot with self-control - if your IQ enables you to recognize that there is a problem and that there is value in learning to control yourself.
Apparently I wasn't very controlled back in my past. :)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 01 2016, @07:40PM
I know I certainly wasn't. Thank $deity_of_choice for my shrink and Adderall. It makes tedium and stupidity bearable, if only just.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday July 02 2016, @01:51AM
It can be, however it's a very short trip from there to full blown psychopathy. If your understanding of feelings is limited to the intellectual, then you're still not bound by them. You might have more choice in terms of whom you piss off, but it's going to be difficult to have any particularly deep connection to others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:15PM
There are plenty of high IQ people who aren't members of MENSA.
And maybe some of the real geniuses won't do as well in IQ tests because they'll see "correct answers" that the tests won't accept as correct answers. ;)
AFAIK Richard Feynman wasn't a member of MENSA (IQ scores too low) and also:
Feynman once told the wife of a friend who suggested that he apply to MENSA, an organization whose members must have IQ’s of 150 or more, that he could not join because his intelligence scores from high school were not high enough. While Feynman was being completely honest, he secretly disdained the arrogance that such an organization represented
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/brau/H182/Term%20Papers/Ryan%20McPherson.html [vanderbilt.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:21PM
Your phrasing suggests disagreement. But your example reinforces the point that high IQ is not a good measure of wisdom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:27PM
It may be true that very high IQ people tend to be worse teachers, but sampling from MENSA may give you skewed/biased results.
MENSA membership is not open to all nor automatic and involuntary on proof of high IQ. You have to want to join, and you have to pay, but only certain types of people are allowed in. While it's not quite like "Old White Men" clubs, it does seem to me that trying to use MENSA members as typical examples of high IQ people and their fitness to be teachers may not be appropriate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:17PM
Mensa is a punch line for comedians.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday July 01 2016, @07:38PM
I just took the MENSA workout test on their website. They claim it's not an accurate test to join them, but it's a good indicator on where you stand. I missed one out of 30 questions, and I was rushing because I need to leave in about 20 minutes to go camping.
Before I moved into dev, I was doing full on technical training classes for new hires on the software my company sells. The manager of that group still asks me if I want to come back when I run into him in the hall. This is the internet and full of bullshit, but it's shown me that someone might not make a good teacher because they're in MENSA, but being likely capable of being in MENSA wouldn't prevent someone from being a good teacher. I don't know if that's good enough for you, but it's good enough for me.
And no, I have no interest in joining. As Groucho said, "I don't care to join any club that will have me."
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday July 01 2016, @02:31PM
This explains one high school teacher I had. Unfortunately she was a science teacher and about as dumb as a brick. On the other hand I had a couple hich school teachers who would have been a better fit for college. One was a math teacher who also did the programming classes and the other was a history teacher who also did the humanities classes. Both were brilliant people who had multiple advanced degrees in the areas the taught and not in teaching.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @07:00AM
"better fit for college" is sort of a bad idea. I get what you mean, but we need more inspirational and high level teachers in high school. There are plenty of high school kids who would benefit from more challenging material, and such teachers are the only source. By the time the hit college, most become jaded by the lame hoops they have to jump through / endure. I remember one day in 7th grade math where a less than stellar student argued with the teacher for 30 fucking minutes about something, and it was obvious to everyone but the teacher that he was arguing simply to pass the time. I went on to more advanced classes, but if I had to endure similar shit until graduating high school I would undoubtedly be way more jaded than I am.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:08PM
One of the primary concerns in the USA is money. Money for teaching! More money per child! Educational budget boosts! That will fix it!
Actually, the USA spends (depending on precisely how you measure the elements) more per child than any other nation on earth (next closest are the swiss, whose strong currency bends the measure a bit). The USA's results are not that great.
So, how much more money do we/should we spend? At what point would we be throwing good money after bad? If the problem is that the money should go to teachers rather than administrators, how can we arrange that?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday July 01 2016, @04:24PM
Teacher pay in the US is rather lousy. However, as you point out, we spend a lot of money per student. So, where's it all going? Simple: not to the teachers.
There's too much administration, administrators are paid way too much, and there's a lot of waste in general.
How do we arrange more money for the teachers and less for the administrators? I'm really not sure. Firing the administrators would probably be a good first step. To build something new, you usually have to burn down the existing thing that's in the way.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @04:51PM
I actually looked at my local school district's budget because I had the same concerns. Turns out the physical facilities themselves were a major expense. You're absolutely right that we should get in there and look at where the money's being spent and decide what we actually should be doing for students rather than just say "we need more money", though.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday July 01 2016, @05:12PM
The first thing you should do to help education is to separate out the smart ones from the rest. This move is free and it lets the smart ones get even smarter. This doesn't happen because even if the smart class exactly matches the demographic diversity of the whole school you will be called a racist. You could also split up by learning style so all the visual or tactile or auditory or whatever learners are together with a teacher that is good with techniques that are good for that type of student.
If I was in charge I would also crack down on stupid text book purchases. Why are we always buying new algebra books? The only difference between my algebra text book and the ones they have now are nicer graphics and they ask how the person feels when you have more apples.
Building schools isn't for the kids. Lumping kids together isn't for the kids. Leveraging emotion for the kids, isn't for the kids. In short school isn't for the kids. It is a tax based money machine for not the kids.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @06:24PM
I've never been in a school that looked like too much money was being spent on it. I never attended one. My kids don't attend one. If there's a problem (which I think there is), it's not that we're spending too much money making the schools too nice. We're spending too much money keeping them adequate.
The trend here is anything but having the latest books. It's more like not having enough of the old ones. I also think that's the wrong problem. We keep textbooks the right amount of time, but an algebra textbook should cost about $15 (or whatever the cost of production, distribution, plus reasonable profit) and pdfs should be available free online. And by "free" I mean districts/states/whatever should buy a package that includes whatever books they want and PDFs to post for free online.
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Friday July 01 2016, @10:14PM
The problem is how that spending is distributed. Because when I was in school, my experience was pretty much the exact opposite of what you described. Every single school I attended underwent massive renovations while I was there...and none of the kids had a clue why because everything seemed to work perfectly well to us. Most of the upgrades for stupid crap like a massive sprawling gym/weight lifting complex that was literally about half of the entire building...for a small, fairly rural highschool whose sports teams would win one game every couple years. Or redesigning the hallways in case of a school shooting...in a town that maybe sees one murder every few years. The only incident they ever had with guns was when the cops shot and killed an unarmed homeless guy on the front steps in front of a bunch of kids. And they pushed through upgrades that *nobody* wanted -- like the fight over whiteboards. Administrators wanted dry erase boards to replace all the chalkboards in every classroom. The teachers almost universally thought that was a terrible idea. A few of the math teachers (since they're using the board all day long) actually scavenged the old chalkboards they were trying to throw out and put them back up. Of course, there were some good and needed upgrades -- like when they replaced all the Apple IIes in the computer labs, sometime around 2000 -- but most of the renovations seemed to be mostly about making the buildings look better. And even though every building I attended was renovated while I was there, and still under construction when I graduated, now only 8 years after I left that district they're starting yet another round of renovations! Some of which is for buildings that weren't done last time, but a few are being redone too.
But between the local college, the county seat and the hospital this was a town with a hell of a lot of doctors, professors, and lawyers. Since schools are funded by property taxes, they had plenty of money. And as far as I could tell they mostly pissed it away on frivolous garbage.
The problem isn't really that we spend too much, it's that the system is specifically structured so that some schools have more money than they know what to do with, while others literally can't afford to keep the lights on. We may spend a lot *on average*, but very few schools actually get that average level of funding.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 01 2016, @08:08PM
We should not be so cheap that the schools should be like dungeons. But they don't have to look like museums or mansions either.
The image I had was more like that of a freight train [nytimes.com].
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 01 2016, @07:13PM
A lot of admin cost is buried. Look at total number of employees vs teachers, usually thats harder to bury.
Ratios of teachers vs non-teachers are approaching 1:1 now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by weeds on Friday July 01 2016, @05:36PM
Although that may be an obvious theory (not a scientific theory, but more like a bar room theory) to some. when considering this theory, consider that more highly paid teachers most likely work in districts where the family incomes are higher.
Clearly, if the pay is higher for a job, you will attract more people. You can imagine that of those people, some will be better than what you might have gotten if you didn't offer this higher pay and will be better performers. But, that's not all of it. I don't think the correlation between higher pay and higher performance works only this way, "I pay you more, so you do a better job." I think it works the other way, "You do a better job, so I will pay you more." With a lack of metrics to determine who you should pay more, there is no incentive to do a better job. Since the only metric is longevity, the motivation is solely to stay as long as you can.
With the advent of the intewebs and the great Google, you could do the research yourself, here is one to get you started:
http://cepa.stanford.edu/content/widening-academic-achievement-gap-between-rich-and-poor-new-evidence-and-possible [stanford.edu]
(ad hominem deflector and anecdotal evidence) insufficient to draw any conclusions...
Am I a teacher, no. I am an aerospace engineer. I have spent some time tutoring high school math students. I have the metrics to show that there was an improvement. I can also tell you that the school would not put me on "the list" of tutors because I didn't have a teaching certificate. As I recall, when I pointed out that those who did have certificates were failing to teach these students, they were not pleased.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @06:06PM
> consider that more highly paid teachers most likely work in districts where the family incomes are higher.
Not all countries fund schools from local property taxes. Heck, not even all US states do it that way.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by weeds on Friday July 01 2016, @07:25PM
Good observation, thanks! If you hadn't posted as AC, I'm sure you'd get modded up.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @10:49PM
Overcrowding the classroom is probably the #1 problem. Tutoring small groups is much easier and more effective. That said, requiring a teaching credential for tutors is the kind of stupid that makes people look down on education as a profession, even though its probably some politician's or parent group's fault.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday July 01 2016, @08:15PM
The money isn't going to better pay for teachers (which would help the 50% attrition rate in the first 3 years of teaching) or for more teachers. Well, some goes to hiring more special ed teachers and aides. One program threw millions of dollars to create an Olympic class athletics facility and as you can imagine it had zero impact on student achievement. People pointed to it saying that is proof that money isn't the problem. Meanwhile most schools have lost/decreased their "non-essential" programs like languages, art, music, shop.
Raising teacher pay would be good and would show that we value our children's future. However, a more pressing issue is class size. Most teachers have 30-40 students in each class, and it becomes impossible to give adequate attention to each student. However, hiring at least 2X more teachers would be very expensive and thus it doesn't happen. Since people don't value education it is easy for politicians and administrators to cut costs by increasing class sizes. It is stupid.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday July 01 2016, @04:09PM
I understand the mentality that higher qualified teachers should be a positive feedback loop (better teachers -> smarter students -> smarter teachers). However looking at the other fields there isn't many that I would deem worthy of removing talent from. Imagine having any of your high school instructors work on an engineering team designing a car. I don't want to drive in that car! Yes, exceptions exist all over the place (dud engineers, or awesome teachers), but I'm arguing that if there was a large paradigm shift pulling talent from the STEM field into other fields it would be worse on the whole.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 01 2016, @04:27PM
Real world experience is very valuable. Put that teacher on the design project and their skill level will improve, making them a better teacher.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday July 01 2016, @05:18PM
I work in schools.
Currently, the most highly qualified person in an independent (private) school with 50+ staff... the Librarian. The only one with a doctorate.
Teaching is a horrible profession, I looked into it after graduating and wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, but I've always worked in schools, just on the "IT admin" side.
Sure, they have the holidays, etc. but - to be honest - pay scales in state schools in the UK are atrocious. I've often had to keep my salary secret.
Much of the problem is cultural - far too much unnecessary paperwork and presentation (so many teachers spend SO MANY hours on "making displays" and things like that, not to mention the faffing done on reports at the last moment instead of in advance, and the unnecessarily large amount of "marking" throughout the year that could easily be automated), a focus on the back end instead of the teaching, and so on.
These people do an important job, but I've watched far too many inadequate teachers coast for years, even decades, without actually learning anything new themselves. I've seen people teach outdated and inaccurate junk, because that's what they were taught. And I've seen teachers who have almost no subject knowledge or interest outside the exam questions.
The independent (private) sector is better - quite obviously. Because they don't tolerate coasting, or lack of knowledge or a lot of the modern fads (iPads, whiteboards, touchscreen, visualisers, etc.) to the point of detriment of basic skills, and they encourage progress and participation in all things from all staff. And obviously, staff get paid more for that than they would in a state school.
But, as an IT guy with ZERO industry certifications, just a maths degree, I wonder quite what those who are coasting expect. I mean, seriously, if I got even six months behind on technology, services, facilities, features, products, skills, etc. available to me, I'd be out of a job through obsolescence. But it seems a teacher in a state school can get out of uni and teach for 40 years without learning a damn thing new, except how to take the register on a PC rather than on paper, or whatever.
They have a horrible, hard job, with little recognition, tons of paperwork, and lots and lots of unnecessary shite. And they get rewarded for it appropriately, I think. And yet they're always on strike or complaining about it and lots of harder, more horrible, less recognising, worse jobs are around that still don't give you free reign to spend your entire summer abroad even under the guise of "working from home".
But the special teachers, the ones that really make the difference? They are few and far between because the rewards just aren't there for them. They can go work freelance in their industry, earn more, work less, and be recognised for their skills. You can't solve that problem while you consider education as anything other than something you pour money into now - and spend wisely, not on gadgets - to reap the rewards when the next generation grow up.
Currently the UK are heading in exactly the opposite direction, making university fees higher and higher (I never had to pay for my degree), and turning secondary schools into for-profit Academies run by conglomerates.
Some things you spend money on. Education. Health. Because the money you spend will be returned two-fold in terms of longer-paid taxes, higher salaries, less stupidity in the world, etc.
But education is now a profit centre, and the teachers themselves were taught in profit centres so they don't see it.
Dig out a 1960's A-Level paper and put it in front of the average teacher today, with whatever monetary / unit conversion tables are needed (e.g. pre-decimalisation money, etc.) and have it marked by the marking scheme of the 1960's. See how they do. I guarantee you that almost all teachers would fail.
And, damn, I went to school in the 90's, so it's not even an age thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:07PM
You could do the same with tests from today and give them to children who take those a levels. If you don't know the alphabet on the first day of kindergarten, you are behind. If you can't divide using two digit numbers in fourth grade, you are behind. If you don't understand feedback cycles in second, you are behind. True, rote facts have less emphasis but the concepts required are much more advanced.
Besides, you don't need to be an expert in trigonometry as an adult to teach kids the concept of our base 10 number system. If you think that is easy, I guarantee your local University has a "math for elementary educators" or similarly named class and I challenge you to take it.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday July 02 2016, @05:22AM
Currently the UK are heading in exactly the opposite direction, making university fees higher and higher (I never had to pay for my degree), and turning secondary schools into for-profit Academies run by conglomerates.
That is the case in England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have independent control over their education budgets, and still fund their schools through local councils. They aren't converting schools into "Academies", and they have lower or non-existent university fees for local applicants. Admittedly, they may be pressured into copying England's approach on tuition fees at some point, if the higher education budgets get squeezed...
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday July 01 2016, @08:41PM
http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQincome.htm [4mg.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday July 01 2016, @09:06PM
Gerrit van de Linde A.K.A. De Schoolmeester [wikipedia.org] wrote a famous poem about teaching which reflects the situation in 1859 in the Netherlands (kids had to go to school on saturdays until half the 20th century, hence the "three pairs of days").
(He also wrote the *best epitaph ever*, about the poet Poot [wikipedia.org], the rhyming farmer)
I don't know if I can be bothered to translate it to English. The poem gave me a very strong feeling of: "DON'T become a school teacher" when we discussed it in Dutch lessons.
The author's been dead for 158 years, so I'm going to quote in full (let's hope TTIP doesn't bring 160 year copyright or I'm screwed)
De Schoolmeester, door "De Schoolmeester" (pseudonym van Gerrit van de Linde), uit: "Gedichten van den Schoolmeester" (1859)
Okay... here goes.. this English translation © 2016 fritsd (license: CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @12:47AM
The brainwave monitoring headsets will be able to detect when a student is confused or not paying attention and the computer can adjust the presentation. Students will be able to progress at their own pace. This will be how education gets "disrupted" and like Uber disrupting the taxi monopoly; couldn't come soon enough.